Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Urban Water Systems: Overview of Methods

摘要

Urban water managers are becoming increasingly aware of the potentially significant influences future climatic change and variability may have on the characteristics of urban water systems. Climate is a key driver in urban water systems and any changes to the current situation may pose risks to operational performance and the preservation of environmental values. Such changes would have significant direct and indirect impacts for the economy, society and environment. Thus there is a need to understand and catalogue the methods available for assessment of climate change impacts on the urban water system, so that potential changes can be incorporated into urban water planning. This paper attempts to review such methods relevant to all aspects of the urban water cycle, from water supply sources to receiving waters. The focus is on providing an overview of available approaches to modelling the impacts of climate change on various components of the urban water cycle, respective to areas of sensitivity and data needs. Choice of modelling methods and techniques will vary with the data needs, data availability, and level of certainty required. Current methods include hypothetical scenarios of change in climate variables to assess sensitivity and those based on 'general circulation models' (GCMs) which model the global climate system. Much focus has been on developing methods to improve outputs of GCMs for the needs of local or regional impact assessment. This paper provides an overview of such methods with limited review on their applicability to quantify potential impacts in urban water contexts.